Week 43—Monday Acts 22:12-15
Acts 22:12-15
NOT GOD’S LAWYER BUT GOD’S WITNESS
This necessity of the Word becoming flesh in winning others to Christ was burned into my very soul by an unforgettable experience in the very beginning of my ministry. I had begun to study law, but the law dropped away and the ministry gripped me. I told my pastor. He was very happy and said he wanted me to preach my first sermon three weeks hence. I was scared, but I had three weeks in which to prepare. My idea was that I was to be God’s lawyer and argue God’s case. A big crowd was there—all my relatives came and the Jones family is large! And they were anxious to see the young man do well.
I began on a high key—too high. I used a word I had never used before—and I’ve never used since—“indifferentism.” When I used that word, a girl attending college put down her head and smiled. It so unnerved me that when I came back to the thread of my discourse it was gone. My mind was a perfect blank. I clutched wildly for something to say but nothing came. Finally I blurted out, “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten my sermon.” Six sentences and I tripped over that word “indifferentism.” This was the beginning of my ministry—a dead failure. I started down the pulpit steps to go to my seat when God said to me, “Haven’t I done anything for you?” “Why, yes,” I replied, “everything.” “Couldn’t you tell that?” “Well, I might.” So instead of going to my seat I came around in front and said, “Friends, I see I can’t preach. But you know my life is different in this community. And though I can’t preach I’m going to witness for God the balance of my days.” I said some more things like that. At the close a young man came up and said, “Stanley, I want to find what you have.” I have often wondered what he saw that he wanted amid the wreckage of things that night. But he knelt with me and was converted. He became a minister, and his daughter became a missionary to Africa. As a lawyer I was a failure; as a witness I was a success. I had found through a hard experience the keynote of my ministry—I was to be a witness—the word of redemption become flesh.
O Lord Jesus, help me to be your witness. I cannot argue people into the Kingdom, but maybe I can show them the Kingdom at work in an unworthy life. I can show you as a Savior because you are saving me. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Not to witness for Christ is to witness against him: “He does nothing for me.”